


Not Your Grave

by sinestrated



Category: Almost Human
Genre: Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-28
Updated: 2013-11-28
Packaged: 2018-01-02 20:55:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1061538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinestrated/pseuds/sinestrated
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years after retiring from the force, John runs into a familiar face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Your Grave

He sees him, and everything stops.

For a moment, John can’t move. He stares across the expanse of the dimly lit, smoke-filled bar, and it all fades out—the buzz of conversation, the creak of stools, the soft clink of the  glasses, all of it disappears as he takes in the broad shoulders, the dark skin, the head of curly hair.

_Dorian._

He’s taken a step forward without even thinking about it, has his mouth already open to call out when the man turns fully to wave the bartender down for another beer. And the hope rising in John’s chest hits an abrupt wall.

It’s Dorian, but at the same time it isn’t. The man at the bar has his partner’s face, the same nose, the same mouth, the same soft eyes—but it’s older, more drawn, weathered by the years. His hair is speckled with gray where Dorian’s stayed perfect coffee-brown; stubble dots his jaw where Dorian was always clean-shaven. And, John realizes, the way the man uncaps his beer and takes a generous swig is far too natural. Human.

His brain finally catches up with his pounding heart, and John swallows. This isn’t Dorian, or even another DRN unit.

It’s the model.

Sight, sound, and sensation slowly flow into awareness again. Still, John can’t move, can’t take his eyes off this man who isn’t Dorian, who _can’t_ be Dorian (because Dorian isn’t here anymore, he’s dead, he’s gone, and some days John can barely _breathe_ for the pain), yet wears a face that makes John ache nonetheless.

If Dorian had been alive— _human_ , if he’d aged like John has, he would look like this man. But he hadn’t. Androids don’t age—not physically, at least, and even as John grew older, even as the grey snuck into his temples and wrinkles began to form at the corners of his eyes, Dorian stayed young, stayed strong and kind and _there_ , like a firm, protective wall against John’s back.

Until he wasn’t anymore.

Someone at a nearby table tells a joke, and the entire group bursts into loud, raucous laughter. The sound jolts John out of memories of a smile, whispers of his name and the light touch of fingers to his skin, and he has to blink and take a moment to remember where he is. It isn’t the first time this has happened.

When he looks up again, not-Dorian is watching him from the bar.

Embarrassment’s the first thing to pop up, of course, and John’s first instinct is to look away, turn back to his beer and just pretend the whole thing never happened. Except before he can even move, not-Dorian raises an eyebrow and beckons with a quick jerk of his chin, a clear invitation.

And John can’t resist.

He tries to hide his stare as he slides onto the stool next to the man, but he must not succeed because the slightest hint of amusement flickers through not-Dorian’s eyes as he smiles and offers a hand. His eyes are brown. “Hi,” he says, “I’m Matt.” And John swallows. His voice is different too: lower, gruffer, with a slight undertone of East Coast.

“John Kennex.”

“Pleased to meet you, John.”

Matt looks like he means it, but he doesn’t say anything after that. They fall into silence, not exactly friendly yet not quite awkward enough to warrant John getting up and leaving again. He looks down at the label he’s peeling off his beer bottle and tries to think of something to say, something less creepy than _So you look a lot like my old work partner. Who was also a robot. And the guy I was sleeping with. No, I’m not crazy, why do you ask?_

Then Matt straightens up, drums his fingertips on the counter, and clears his throat. “So. Who was he?”

John blinks. “Who was who?”

“Your Dorian.”

John’s not sure what face he’s making, but whatever it is, it makes something in Matt’s eyes soften. “You’re not the first person to look at me like you’ve seen a ghost, John.”

And the look he’s giving him, compassionate eyes and a small, knowing smile, is so quintessentially _Dorian_ that the tears prickle at the corners of John’s eyes before he can stop them. Quickly he turns away, blinking a couple of times and taking a deep breath.

Matt, to his credit, doesn’t seem to mind. Still, it takes John a few more moments before he’s able to turn around and say, on a shaky breath, “I used to work for the LAPD. He was my partner.”

“Oh.” Matt smiles. “Police work. Gotta admit, that’s a first.”

John nods. “I take it you get mistaken for a DRN a lot?”

“Well, not so much now,” Matt answers. “People’ve been recognizing me less ever since the model was discontinued. You’re actually the first one in a good few years.”

“I see.” John tries on a smile. “I’ll bet you’ve got all sorts of funky stories then, huh? What with the DRNs being built with the synthetic soul and all.”

Matt chuckles at that. “Yeah, you wouldn’t believe the things I’ve heard. Some taught. Some went into space; one actually made it to Mars. A couple became therapists. Some were good coworkers. Some were friends.” He pauses and looks at John. His voice softens. “Some were lovers.”

The pain is familiar, but that doesn’t make it any less sharp. John swallows. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Matt’s smile holds no judgment. “They were built to feel, John. I guess…it was inevitable.”

John remembers the first time Dorian kissed him. They were fresh off a gunfight, the adrenaline still pumping through John’s veins, and Dorian’s lips on his own had felt so perfect, so completely, painfully _right_ , like all they had ever done throughout their lives had been geared specifically to bring them both to this point.

When Dorian drew back, his blue eyes shone. _I always knew,_ he’d said.

John takes a breath. “Glad to see you’re open-minded about it.”

Matt grins at that. “Hey, I let some big government corporation plaster my face on a bunch of androids. You don’t get much more open-minded than that.”

John nods. A beat of silence follows. Further down the counter, someone groans the groan of the truly shit-faced an instant before the heavy _thunk_ of forehead meeting wood sounds out.

The synthetic leg gives a sudden twinge of pain. John barely feels it, inured after years of discomfort. Dorian used to place his hand on it when they slept, calming it, encouraging the artificial nerves to fuse seamlessly with John’s. In all the years he was partnered with Dorian, the leg gave him no problems. Now, he goes barely a day without it acting up in one way or another.

He welcomes the pain. It’s a reminder of the part of himself that died with Dorian, the ragged hole in his heart that will always ache, always hurt, and will never be repaired.

Next to him, Matt clears his throat. When he speaks, his voice is careful. “But he’s not here with you. Your Dorian.” When John looks up, the other man is regarding him with sympathy. “He’s gone, isn’t he?”

_See you on the other side, John._

The tears threaten to return, and John quickly blinks them away. “Yeah. He…it was a long time ago.”

Matt nods, slowly. “Can I ask…how he died?”

John doesn’t answer for a long time. He looks down at his beer, amber liquid creating bubbles of condensation on the glass. _You stare at it any longer and I’m gonna get jealous,_ Dorian once said.

_I’m not staring; I’m brooding._

_Over what?_

_I don’t know. I’m a goddamned police officer; I’m supposed to brood._

_Whatever you say, John._

“John?”

He looks back at Matt, who’s still watching him with that infuriatingly soft expression. He’s not Dorian, but John thinks he deserves to know.

He takes a deep breath, looks back down at his beer, and begins. “We were on a case. A terrorist organization tried to blow up a fusion reactor.”

 

_The wail of alarms is deafening, bouncing around like a bullet inside John’s skull. He groans, stumbles on a misstep, and feels Dorian’s arm tighten around his waist. “Almost there, John,” his partner says, and John grits his teeth._

_“Hell of a time for the leg to give out,” he growls, and feels more than hears the vibration of Dorian’s chuckle._

_“Can’t blame it, man. Gamma radiation isn’t exactly healthy to robotic body parts.”_

_“Yeah.” John coughs, trying to ignore the faintly metallic taste at the back of his throat. Apparently his leg isn’t the only thing affected by the radiation. They’re technically near the outskirts of the power plant, outside the exposure radius, but those goddamned HRA nutcases nicked some sort of failsafe. John knows he’ll be lucky to get out of this alive._

_Something occurs to him, and he lifts his head to look at Dorian as they continue stumbling along. “Hey. Is the radiation affecting you too?”_

_Dorian takes about three seconds to answer, which is exactly two seconds too long. “Some of my auxiliary systems are beginning to overheat,” he admits. “And I’m losing about two dozen synaptic connections per second.”_

_Worry wars with anger in John’s gut, because it’s just like Dorian not to mention something as important as_ his goddamned body shutting down _until John asks him. “We need to get out of here.”_

_“Agreed,” Dorian says, and a few seconds later, just as they pass another of the bright yellow hazard signs painted on the wall, he stops. “Okay. Here’s good.”_

_John blinks. “What—hey!”_

_But Dorian is already lowering him down, settling him against the wall. His expression is carefully neutral. “You’re far enough away from the reactor that the radiation is no longer a danger,” he says, “and I’ve already sent out a distress signal, so backup should be here in a few minutes.”_

_And John will never know what tells him, whether it’s the blankness of Dorian’s expression or the painful_ not _-blankness of his eyes, but he knows immediately that something is terribly wrong. “And you’re staying with me, right?”_

_Dorian looks away. When he speaks, his voice is resigned. “There are only one and a half minutes left until the reactor overheats and levels the entire city,” he says. “Someone needs to go in and pull the fuel rods.”_

_John’s blood freezes to ice._ No, _he thinks._ Please, no. _“We—We’ll get an MX over here, send it in—”_

_“They won’t make it in time.” Dorian looks at him, and his eyes are nothing but sad. “I have to do this, John. I’m sorry.”_

_“No.” John reaches out and grasps Dorian by the wrist, trying to pull him down, to keep him close. “No, Dorian. There has to be another way.”_

_“There isn’t.”_

_“_ Please. _”_

_Dorian doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then, very slowly, he kneels down and kisses John, soft, chaste, and not nearly enough. When they pull back, his eyes shine with sad resignation, but the smile he offers is genuine. “Thanks for everything,” he whispers. “See you on the other side, John.”_

_Then he’s gone, standing and making his way back down the hallway where they’d come, back toward the reactor and_ away from John _, and John curses, tries to follow but his damned useless leg makes him trip and fall even as he reaches out, straining, everything in him screaming not to do this, not to let Dorian go—_

 _“No! Dorian,_ no! _”_

_Dorian turns just once: a brief look, a small smile. Then he turns the corner, and is gone._

_John scrabbles for his comm, already sizzled by radiation. By the time he finally gets it rewired and working, two minutes have passed. Nothing has blown up; no one has died._

_The instant the blue working light comes on, he comms his partner, barely able to speak around panic in his throat. “Dorian? Dorian, it’s John. Are you there?”_

_Static._

_Maybe the radiation’s interfering with the signal. John smacks the comm against his palm and tries again. “Dorian. Dorian, answer me, damnit!”_

_Static._

_The signal is clear, which means there’s no one on the other end. Dorian is gone._

_The comm slips from suddenly listless fingers. John looks down at his hands and feels a part of himself die._

_Three minutes later, Stahl and three MXs rush down the hallway toward him. Less than two seconds after that, the other detective marches right back out and orders the androids out with her._

_John lets them go, curls in on himself, and continues to cry._

For a long moment after, Matt just watches him. John doesn’t look at him, continuing to focus on the bar counter, but he can feel the other man’s gaze like a physical weight against his skin.

At last, Matt says, “I’m so sorry, John.”

John sighs, feeling all of a sudden very tired, and very old. “Me too.”

“What happened after?”

John pushes his beer bottle aside. “Rudy—he’s our lab tech—he wouldn’t let me see his…his remains. Said it would be better if I remembered Dorian the way he always was. Our captain offered to hold a funeral service, three-volley salute and everything, but I refused.”

Matt nods. “Dorian wouldn’t have wanted that.”

“Yeah,” John says. “He hated funerals.”

“But you have something left of him?”

“Yes.” John doesn’t elaborate, and Matt doesn’t ask.

They sit in silence for a moment longer. Around them, life continues on, the people in the bar moving along with their conversations, their drinks, their simple lives. John watches them and tries not to think about how Dorian always loved these sorts of places, blending in with the patrons like he was made for it.

In a way, he was.

Next to him, Matt eventually shifts and clears his throat. “So,” he says, and nods at John’s now-empty beer. “Can I buy you another?”

By the time they finish talking, it’s already last call. Matt smiles and offers him his number, rolling his eyes at John’s obligatory leer and informing him that he’s actually quite happily married, thanks. John doesn’t know if he’ll actually call him. Having the option is nice, though.

When John gets home, the apartment is dark and quiet, lonely like it’s always been. He drops his coat on the couch and heads to the bedroom.

It’s sparse; he’s never been one for decorating, and Dorian was programmed not to be messy. The only personal touches are the antique first editions Dorian liked to save up to buy, and the square, miniature datapad sitting on a custom-made stand atop the dresser.

John crosses the room and picks up the datapad. It’s small, only two inches by two inches, and John remembers the weight of it when Rudy first pressed it into his palm so many years ago.

 _All of Dorian’s internal source code is routed wirelessly through the precinct’s servers,_ he’d explained. _This is a transcript of the final ten seconds or so of his transmissions. His last words, of sorts._ When he looked up at John, his eyes were distinctly wet. _I thought…I thought you might want it._

John sits down on the edge of the bed—large, always built for two and now so empty with Dorian gone—and flicks the datapad on, watching as the familiar text scrolls down, line by agonizing line.

 

_cmd/ >query__

_query/ >full system diagnostic__

_**Processing…**_

_PRELIMINARY REPORT_

_Core systems: functional_

_Auxiliary systems: OVERHEATED**_

_Nonessential functions: FAILING**_

_Background applica004225ll;;2288ffzzz_

_;;_

_[[system error]]_

_cmd/ >external transmission__

_recip_ID/ >j.kennex__

_**Connecting…**_

_**Connecting…**_

_[[WARNING: RADIATION LEVELS CRITICAL]]_

_[[WARNING: EXTERNAL TEMPERATURES CRITICAL]]_

_**Connection failed**_

_cmd/ >redial__

_**Connecting…**_

_[[WARNING: AUXILIARY SYSTEMS FAILING]]_

_**Connection failed**_

_[[WARNING: PRIMARY PROCESSORS OVERHEATING]]_

_cmd/ >redial__

_**Connecti225;;wvmtte992xbbb//;_

_;_

_[[PRIMARY PROCESSORS FAILING]]_

_cmd/ >redial__

_cmd/ >redia;;12229911mmwi49ssppb;;_

_[[TOTAL SYSTEMS FAILURE]]_

_[[TOTAL SYSTEMS FAI00114445mwwjfsi_

_ju;;22/////2359981fwaapm;mb;_

_;_

_;;_

_;_

_john_

 

John stares down at the datapad, and this time when the tears come, he doesn’t stop them. He knows why Rudy gave him the transcript, why Maldonado let him retire from the department with full benefits when it became clear he couldn’t take on another MX partner.

It still hurts. Some days it hurts so bad John almost can’t bear it, his very soul aching for Dorian with such need it leaves him gasping for air, reaching desperately for something that’s long gone. On those days, he looks at the transcript and sees only Dorian’s death, his partner dying broken and alone, and the anger and sorrow and overwhelming _loss_ is enough to make him drink himself into a stupor for a week.

Other days like today, he meets people like Matt, people who understand, who don’t look at Dorian and see just another synthetic, something to be used and then thrown away. People like Matt can look at John and see the man that he is, the man Dorian coaxed into the world, the man who loves him all the more for it.

Today, John looks at the transcript and sees only his name at the bottom, the final line of Dorian’s transmission, the last thought Dorian ever had. It still comes with pain, but underneath it comes the slow sense of relief, the knowledge that maybe, just maybe, when he died, Dorian wasn’t truly alone. It lifts some of the weight from John’s shoulders, allows him to smile even through his tears.

Dorian died thinking of John.

It isn’t much.

But it’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Regarding translations:** All my works, including this one, can be translated without first asking my express permission. I ask only that you credit me as the original author and provide a link back to the original work. For anything other than translations, please ask first. Thanks.


End file.
